I must be going through a triathlon phase. A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to ride with CycleU coach Jessica Kelley as she trains for the upcoming Norseman Xtreme Triathlon. This week it’s an interview with Navin Singh, who has overcome severe physical adversity and is aiming to compete in the 2013 Ironman World Championships in Kona.
In high school in the early 1980s, Navin was an athletic kid who ran track and cross-country, and played basketball. Outside of high school sports, he was a competitive outrigger canoe paddler and practiced Tae Kwon Do. Navin was passionate about sport and fitness and was competent at everything he tried.
After graduation, upon returning home to the San Francisco Bay Area after a family trip to India, Navin was suddenly stricken with unusual symptoms for an athletic young man: Over the course of 24 hours he suddenly became weak and unbalanced, and was fast losing his ability to walk. The doctors initially dismissed his symptoms, but one of his doctors had seen this condition before and suspected Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS).
GBS is an autoimmune condition that affects the peripheral nervous system. The first symptoms include weakness or tingling sensations in the legs, which can spread to the arms and upper body. Eventually the symptoms can increase in intensity until the affected person is almost totally paralyzed, and can become life threatening if it interferes with breathing and the heart rate. In Navin’s case things got pretty serious.
Navin was in the ICU for over six weeks as the GBS ran its course. After over two months in the hospital he finally recovered enough to leave the hospital in a wheelchair and graduated to a rehab center in Vallejo where he spent six weeks doing physical therapy full-time.
Powered by youthful athletic determination, it took Navin two years to progress from the wheelchair to walking with crutches and finally to walking with braces on his lower legs, which he still wears. Navin was so serious about his recovery that he never thought the effects of the GBS would be permanent, and even though he was bedridden he didn’t want any pictures taken because he was already starting his recovery process and moving on.
Now 47, Navin has not lost his youthful athletic determination and is standing up to be an inspiration for others: “I have learned many lessons on my journey after surviving Guillain-Barre Syndrome. The one that stands out is that we have a choice and that anything is possible if we choose to strive for it.”
Training for Ironman Kona may be an even more ominous project than recovering from GBS. Navin is currently training 14 hours a week but plans to ramp up to over 20 hours as his training blocks expand. He is in the somewhat fortunate position of having an employer that understands his situation—he works for LifeWise Health Plan of Washington—so as long as he takes care of his work obligations they are supportive as he trains and prepares for the Ironman. Not to mention the fact that Navin’s saga fits pretty darned well with the health plan and its commitment to health and wellness for its members.
From a training perspective, Navin is working with coach Ben Bigglestone at VO2 Multisport who has competed in the Ironman World Championshiops in Kona three times and has taken more athletes to Kona than any other Seattle-area coach. Navin’s training challenges center around the fact that his lower legs were severely affected by the GBS—he still “has a hitch in his gitalong” as the saying goes. As a result, a big part of Navin’s training involves learning to recruit different muscle groups.
At the moment Navin and coach Ben are focused on the swim: Navin needs to make the time cutoff or the race will be over after the first leg. They are investigating the possibility that he could wear a wet suit, but even if he can’t, Navin says his swimming technique is getting better and he is currently swimming over 6,000 yards per week.
The marathon will be the hardest event for Navin. He’ll be using carbon fiber ankle foot orthosis braces (AFO) to enable him to go at a run/walk pace of about 13-17 minutes per mile. To help with the run and develop some alternative muscle recruitment, Navin is currently running on an Alter G anti-gravity treadmill at the Sports Reaction Center in Bellevue, which enables him to run at a lower percentage of his body weight, and then slowly increase the percentage over time.
Navin will be finishing near the cutoff times for each leg, and I wondered about the mental difficulties of staying focused that long. His current race plan has him finishing under 16 hours, but he knows he’s going to have to concentrate on pacing himself. Coach Ben is giving him some mental tools to keep him present in the race as the miles and hours wear on.
Navin has been able to mentally re-frame the role of GBS in his life: “Recovering from GBS gave me mental strength that I will depend on during those long hours of the race. When you are paralyzed but can still feel everything, you learn how to block things out. A great example of this was that when I was hospitalized I could feel a wrinkled sheet under me digging into my back, but could not move to relieve the irritation so I learned to block it out and think about something else.”
In preparation for Kona, Navin will be racing the Lake Stevens Half Ironman on July 21. As you can imagine, climbing on the bike is difficult for Navin, and the Lake Stevens event will give him the opportunity to practice climbing in competition, as well as practice his transitions, which are a challenge because of the leg braces.
If Navin’s story resonates with you, you can help him get to Kona by voting for him in the Kona Inspired Contest.
